Drug-resistant gonorrhea receded in the U.K. as doctors switched to a new combination of antibiotics to clear the sexually transmitted bacterium, a study found.

Analysis of more than 6,000 samples from clinics in England and Wales over five years showed that resistance to cefixime, a generic drug and the first-line treatment for gonorrhea since 2004, fell to 10.8 percent in 2011 from 17.1 percent in 2010, reversing a four-year surge, researchers from Public Health England wrote in The Lancet journal today.